National Park charging

[vvgogh]

Friendly NPS at North Rim

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[The Weatherman]

Hell it was your tax money that installed those plugs and pays the bills every month.

 

[Maxx]

Friendly NPS at North Rim

This sign needs a proper poster:

 

[B177y]

Friendly NPS at North Rim

I wonder if that was left by a visitor or by park staff. A park ranger is "the Law" in the park, so it seems like a "concerned citizen" may have left that sticky note.

Either way, that's really odd.

 

[Grumpy2]

Not so rude, it is probably wired with 14 romex and may have other items inside on that same circuit. Never designed for the EV steady load.

Friendly NPS at North Rim

 

[21st Century Truck]

FYI I've seen such receptacle postings and warnings before on parking lot receptacles in a certain Federal agency parking lot where I used to work.

This is driven by the legal distinction between "Appropriated Funding" and Non-Appropriated Funding" and the two cannot be mixed, under the threat of some significant penalties for the facility manager(s). A bit arcane, but there is a definite reason.

The reason has to do with a legal prohibition against mixing different Federal "pots" or streams of funding categories , appropriated and nonappropriated. To explain this distinction, the funding for that parking lot and for the electrical supply contracts for that particular North Rim NPS facility, was "Appropriated" under a specific statute paragraph for a specified outcome. The provision of EV juice was not foreseen under the specifics of that particular appropriation law, and thus handing such capability out would legally equal to handing out gratuities by the facility's manager(s) which can be done but only with "nonappropriated funds". And that runs directly into legally prohibited activities, originally (I think) because of past incidents of mostly local corruption in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

It all stems from how Congresses have written Fraud, Waste and Abuse laws over the decades throughout the 20th Century.

It's akin to not providing unforeseen gratuities while trying to serve the entire public sphere, where such gratuities would cost notable $$$ (over time) and might eventually be perceived as an entitlement for a subset of the general public. My words, not any statute's phrasing.

Sorry for the blast of legalese... again, the legal (and real) risk is to the operations manager(s) of such facilities.

 

[BarryGoyette]

Friendly NPS at North Rim

Idk about north rim but south rim has at least a hundred free chargers all over the village, not sure why you’d arbitrarily plug into someone’s AC receptacle without asking.

 

[21st Century Truck]

The North Rim is much more remote and undeveloped. Few charging points there when we visited and stayed the night back in Summer 2023 (with the Mach E). The closest set of DC Fast charging points then was a cluster of ChargePoint stations in the municipal parking lot in Kanab, Utah, pretty much the nearest town a good ways to the North.

 

[Larryumo]

Friendly NPS at North Rim

Perchance I'll be censored but with the new dictatorship, I would not be surprised were our trucks to be outlawed for some fictitious reason.

DRILL BABY DRILL!!

 

[Church]

FYI I've seen such receptacle postings and warnings before on parking lot receptacles in a certain Federal agency parking lot where I used to work.

This is driven by the legal distinction between "Appropriated Funding" and Non-Appropriated Funding" and the two cannot be mixed, under the threat of some significant penalties for the facility manager(s). A bit arcane, but there is a definite reason.

The reason has to do with a legal prohibition against mixing different "pots" or streams of funding categories , appropriated and nonappropriated. To explain this distinction, the funding for that parking lot and for the electrical supply contracts for that particular North Rim NPS facility, was "Appropriated" under a specific statute paragraph for a specified outcome. The provision of EV juice was not foreseen under the specifics of that particular appropriation law, and thus handing such capability out would legally equal to handing out gratuities by the facility's manager(s) which can be done but only with "nonappropriated funds". And that runs directly into legally prohibited activities, originally (I think) because of past incidents of mostly local corruption in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

It all stems from how Congresses have written Fraud, Waste and Abuse laws over the decades throughout the 20th Century.

It's akin to not providing unforeseen gratuities while trying to serve the entire public sphere, where such gratuities would cost notable $$$ (over time) and might eventually be perceived as an entitlement for a subset of the general public. My words, not any statute's phrasing.

Sorry for the blast of legalese... again, the legal (and real) risk is to the operations manager(s) of such facilities.

As a State employee charged with managing a County Department, and both a state funded and county funded budget for said “pots” of money. I, 100%, feel the hell out of this response. And the dumb rules for simple things based on funding.

 

[21st Century Truck]

As a State employee charged with managing a County Department, and both a state funded and county funded budget for said “pots” of money. I, 100%, feel the hell out of this response. And the dumb rules for simple things based on funding.

Yeah so true. I remember back when I was serving in uniform in Europe, a general officer in either Wiesbaden or Heidelberg, both major Army commands at the time, ordered multiple dozens of flags for a ceremonial conference room or something like that... and he had no $$$ left in the appropriated unit budget for the year so he ordered staff to pay with NAF $$$.

That made the papers, and he got reprimanded etc. which for a general officer means "end of the road"... it was a big thing.

 

[Church]

It’s madness. God forbid you don’t follow the tedious rules to the Tee and get audited (internally, by the state, or a 3rd party unnecessarily involved to slow the process)

 

[Danface]

FYI I've seen such receptacle postings and warnings before on parking lot receptacles in a certain Federal agency parking lot where I used to work.

This is driven by the legal distinction between "Appropriated Funding" and Non-Appropriated Funding" and the two cannot be mixed, under the threat of some significant penalties for the facility manager(s). A bit arcane, but there is a definite reason.

The reason has to do with a legal prohibition against mixing different Federal "pots" or streams of funding categories , appropriated and nonappropriated. To explain this distinction, the funding for that parking lot and for the electrical supply contracts for that particular North Rim NPS facility, was "Appropriated" under a specific statute paragraph for a specified outcome. The provision of EV juice was not foreseen under the specifics of that particular appropriation law, and thus handing such capability out would legally equal to handing out gratuities by the facility's manager(s) which can be done but only with "nonappropriated funds". And that runs directly into legally prohibited activities, originally (I think) because of past incidents of mostly local corruption in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

It all stems from how Congresses have written Fraud, Waste and Abuse laws over the decades throughout the 20th Century.

It's akin to not providing unforeseen gratuities while trying to serve the entire public sphere, where such gratuities would cost notable $$$ (over time) and might eventually be perceived as an entitlement for a subset of the general public. My words, not any statute's phrasing.

Sorry for the blast of legalese... again, the legal (and real) risk is to the operations manager(s) of such facilities.

If one was to invest ... Oppps " donate" to the politicos would the perception of an entitlement be so "percieved" or more "expected"? Sorry, I know the laws are there for a reason, I'm talking to the distortion of the rule of law by $$$$$. Money is free speech and only have enough to whisper.

 

[vvgogh]

It's akin to not providing unforeseen gratuities while trying to serve the entire public sphere, where such gratuities would cost notable $$$ (over time) and might eventually be perceived as an entitlement for a subset of the general public.

Why can't we just pay $5/day in a drop-box? I saw this at a 20 kW Tesla destination charger in Escalante, UT (put $20 in the drop-box). Maybe I need to bring a payment drop-box and key and donate that to a ranger as well if they can't spare $10 from their allowable budget for a box.

There aren't a lot of charging options in some of these remote locations. Sometimes none as in North Rim's case during my recent visits. I could get nearly a 50% charge off that 120V while I run rim2rim2rim from the North Rim campground and take a recovery day.

Here's a picture from a recent run I started from the North Rim:

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